Spawning Ground
By LESTER DEL REY
They weren't human. They were something
more—and something less—they were,
in short, humanity's hopes for survival!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways.
Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity.
Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. "Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave."
"Yeah." He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. "Anything newduring the night?"
"About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds." The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. "Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back."
Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution.
Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts.
But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup.
He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog.
There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them....
But there was no time.
Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists